Nick Train’s investment boutique has loaded up on more shares in Hargreaves Lansdown.
Lindsell Train now owns 13% of Hargreaves as of last Wednesday, up from 12%, according to a regulatory filing. Lindsell Train remains the FTSE 100 platform firm’s largest institutional shareholder behind Peter Hargreaves who owns a 32.4% stake.
Hargreaves saw a third of the value wiped off its share price during the biggest drawdown period of the coronavirus sell-off. Its shares fell from £17.10 a pop on 20 February to £11.58 on 23 March. They have since rebounded and are back up around £16 a share.
The D2C platform is one of the Finsbury Growth & Income trust’s largest investments, representing 6.3% of net asset value, and makes up 6.6% of the £5.4bn Lindsell Train UK Equity fund.
In turn, Hargreaves Lansdown owns 18.4 million shares in Finsbury Growth & Income, making it the second largest shareholder in the £1.6bn investment trust.
A month after the Woodford Equity Income suspension Hargreaves pulled two of Train’s open-ended funds – Lindsell Train UK Equity and Lindsell Train Global Equity – from its Wealth 50 list.
Train told investors at the Finsbury Growth & Income AGM he finds the implication of a possible conflict of interest “painful” and said the matter had been reviewed by compliance teams at Lindsell Train and Hargreaves Lansdown as well as by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Earlier this month Lindsell Train revealed it had taken a hit to its valuation from the coronavirus sell-off as assets fell to £18.2bn.
